Gran Torino

no one call’s you a pussy like Clint does.

There is something extremely satisfying about an old pissed off that guy swears relentlessly. It’s always the kids who have the most foul mouths but it’s like they don’t know how to do it properly. On the other hand ‘life’s a bitch and i’ve experienced it’ seniors wield the power of swear words masterfully, in its true art form, by using it to great affect in appropriate context. Perhaps you think i’ve gone a bit to far with this, but watching Gran Torino, I saw Clint Eastwood suitably channel this phenomenon for his angsty, wartorn, bitter persona and the result was both funny and awesome.

The movie was really interesting. It manage to deal with lots of different issues without making a big fuss about them (without over dramatizing them), which is something I really respect in films. Even if I tell you the premise for the film – old veteran guy hates people and life, bonds with neighborhood foreigner as a father figure – so much that made the film so good is completely missed out. Along the way the movie looks at immigration culture, youth gang culture, the loss of identity, morality and values (with each generation getting worse); and at its core is a man struggling with finding meaning in his life after his soul has been shredded by the hand of his own country he loves and respects. While exposing his trauma from war, he talks about a big operation in Korea where he had no choice but to kill a 17 year old boy, which has been terrible to live with, but the sickest part of all is that the country gave him a medal for doing it. If that doesn’t fuck you up, i don’t know what will.

There were so many little elements I liked in the movie, one in particular was the cleverly thought out design of the story in terms of the clash of cultures.

The American element. A fully American war veteran, flying his beautiful American flag from his porch, stuck in his old values. The DIY man mows his lawn, paints his deck, drives a pickup truck, but cleans his 1973 muscle car, worked at Ford for 50 years, drinks pbr on his porch while spending time with his dog (man’s best friend). Beyond the superficial, his ideals and values are at the heart of America: Liberty in the Jefferson sense. my property and my freedom. Within that freedom I have a right to protect my property through which I have a right to own a gun and guard my personal space from other people. Everyone can co-exists provided everyone keeps to their own shit. Leave me alone and let me live my life on my property the way I want to and I won’t mess with you. This sense of old school liberty, painted thickly on the flag, upheld by a patriotic veteran is just a full bodied 3 dimensional concept. Then to have his world rocked by foreign immigrants with a completely different ideology and way of life.

The Hmong element. Another clever move was to use un-nationed people as the immigrants next door rather than simply Chinese, Korean or Japanese as most people might be tempted to do. They picked a complex culture that has been pushed around in their place of origin and given them a solid reason for coming to america. Even this is thrown at Walt (clint) in a very casual manner by a girl introducing him to their history and culture again without making a big deal. Suddenly he finds himself interacting with a very asiatic culture keen on family, gift giving, visitor feeding, spiritually superstitious, moral respect and outwardly caring about others. To great irony he finds himself connecting with these people more than his own family members.

Of course within this story is the confusion of the second generation diaspora dealing with the process of americanization and gangster culture. There’s a funny scene where the Hmong gang and the Latino gang start bitching at eachother out of the windows of their flexed up cars. So absurd yet equally understandable. Clint’s own son actually has a cameo appearance as a Wigga trying to be brotherly with a few young black trouble makers, only to be saved by his dad (not movie dad but real dad) and then be called a pussy by him. Great stuff.

I could go on analyzing many different bits that I enjoyed but I shall not bore you anymore. I really enjoyed this movie and definitely recommend it, it features some of the funniest stuff I have seen in ages (like i said before grumpy old man swearing with comic precision) but also tackles a lot of human issues and drama. It went a lot of places for 116 minutes but it all felt right, nothing was rushed or dragged out unnecessarily. Some really interesting and dynamic characters are presented here, again without making too much of a big deal. However there were a few moments here and there (specially at the beginning) where they tried too hard to show us what a hardass bastard Clint Eastwood character was. His journey of course is the most interesting and center piece of the film, de-shelling his snake skin and finding the inner human within.

Really enjoyable and can’t wait to buy it for my collection.